Save the Children's 75th Anniversary Benefit Honorees
George Bush
The Forty-First President of the United States
George Bush was sworn in as president of the United States in January 1989 and served until January 1993. During his term in office, the Cold War ended; the threat of nuclear war was drastically reduced; the Soviet Union ceased to exist, replaced by a democratic Russia with the Baltic states becoming free; Berlin Wall fell and Germany was reunified with Eastern Europe; and he put together an unprecedented coalition of 32 nations to liberate Kuwait.
Mr. Bush was the first sitting vice president to ascend to the presidency since 1837, and he was also only the second American president to serve a full term without party control in either chamber of Congress. Nevertheless, among the laws President Bush signed into effect were the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Clean Air Act – landmark civil rights and environmental legislation. He also successfully fought for and negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was later signed into law.
President Bush has written three books: – Looking Forward, an autobiography; A World Transformed, co-authored with General Brent Scowcroft, on foreign policy during his administration, and All The Best, a collection of letters written throughout his life.
Since leaving office, Mr. Bush has helped to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for charity. He is a Life Member of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Board of Visitors and served as chairman of the board from 2002 to 2003; is honorary chairman of the Points of Light Foundation; and, with Mrs. Bush, serves as Honorary Co-Chair of C-Change, a coalition of cancer organizations. He was recently named Chairman of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He also takes an active role in The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, and the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, both located on the campus of Texas A&M University
At the request of President George W. Bush, President Bush worked with President Bill Clinton to help raise funds to aid in the relief efforts following the catastrophic tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast states. In 2006, he served as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for the South Asia earthquake.
Born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Mass., George Bush became a decorated naval pilot who flew torpedo bombers during World War II. In 1944, he was shot down over the island of Chi Chi Jima and rescued. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University in 1948 with a degree in economics, he and his wife Barbara moved to Texas, where he began making his way in the oil business. President Bush's career in politics and public service began in 1963, when he was elected chairman of the Harris County (Texas) Republican Party. He was elected in 1966 to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas' Seventh District and served two terms. Before serving as vice president from 1981 to 1989 under Ronald Reagan, Mr. Bush held a number of senior-level positions, including U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China, and director of Central Intelligence.
George and Barbara Bush have five children and 17 grandchildren. Their oldest son, George W., was sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States in 2001 and began his second term in January 2005. Their son Jeb was governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. The Bushes have been married 62 years and reside in Houston, Texas, and Kennebunkport, Maine.
Bill Clinton
The Forty-Second President of the United States
William Jefferson Clinton was born on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. As a delegate to Boys Nation while in high school, he met President John Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden. The encounter led him to enter a life of public service. President Clinton graduated from Georgetown University and in 1968 won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. He received a law degree from Yale University in 1973, and shortly thereafter entered politics in Arkansas.
President Clinton was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976, and won the governorship in 1978. After losing a bid for a second term, he regained the office four years later, and served until his 1992 bid for the Presidency of the United States.
Elected President of the United States in 1992, and again in 1996, President Clinton was the first Democratic president to be awarded a second term in six decades. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed the strongest economy in a generation and the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. President Clinton's core values of building community, creating opportunity, and demanding responsibility resulted in unprecedented progress for America, including moving the nation from record deficits to record surpluses; the creation of over 22 million jobs—more than any other administration; low levels of unemployment, poverty and crime; and the highest homeownership and college enrollment rates in history. His accomplishments as president include increasing investment in education, providing tax relief for working families, helping millions of Americans move from welfare to work, expanding access to technology, encouraging investment in underserved communities, protecting the environment, countering the threat of terrorism and promoting peace and strengthening democracy around the world. His Administration's economic policies fostered the largest peacetime economic expansion in history. As former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, he is one of the original architects and leading advocates of the Third Way movement.
After leaving the White House, President Clinton established the William J. Clinton Foundation with the mission to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. To achieve this, the Clinton Foundation works to solve some of our most pressing challenges, including childhood obesity in the United States, climate change, global poverty and HIV/AIDS around the world.
Melinda French Gates
Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
As co-chairs, Bill and Melinda Gates shape and approve foundation strategies, review results, advocate for the foundation's issues, and help set the overall direction of the organization.
They meet with local, national, and international grantees and partners to further the foundation's goal of improving equity in the United States and around the world. They also use many public appearances, including speeches, interviews, and articles, to focus attention on these issues.
Melinda Gates received a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics from Duke University in 1986 and a master's in business administration from Duke's Fuqua School of Business in 1987.
After joining Microsoft Corporation in 1987, she distinguished herself in business as a leader in the development of many of Microsoft's multimedia products. In 1996, Gates retired from her position as Microsoft's General Manager of Information Products.
Since then, she has directed her energy toward the nonprofit world. In addition to her role with the foundation, she is a former member of the board of trustees of Duke University and is a former co-chair of the Washington State Governor's Commission on Early Learning.
Bill and Melinda Gates live in Medina, Washington, near Seattle. They have three children.
